


The Correct Way to Drown

by QuestionableCorrosion



Category: End Roll (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Missing Scene, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 08:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8095402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuestionableCorrosion/pseuds/QuestionableCorrosion
Summary: Night falls, and Russell keeps sinking.





	

Russell had liked the Dozing Forest better before the trees had sprouted eyes.

He turned to make sure he had eluded the nightmare lurking on the path, then slowed down to catch his breath. It came in hitches, and no matter how many times he filled his lungs, he felt no better. If anything, inhaling the forest air was like swallowing mist and smoke, filling his head with the heavy atmosphere of the woods.

The eyes were everywhere now, all staring at him no matter where he stood. He did his best to ignore them and looked around. The sky was deep blue and darkening rapidly, the path he stood on illuminated by candles and shimmering orbs of light floating in the air. Had the lights been there on his first night in town? He could no longer remember.

He forced himself to walk forward, each step a bit easier than the last, his long shadow dimming and fading away as he approached the lights and the Incarnation Market. He kept going, paying little attention to the Incarners and their supplies. What was he supposed to do with them? Talk to them? Buy something? He had both time and Walnuts, but neither would alleviate the constriction on his chest. And so, he moved forward.

In the morning, he had believed staying put in town and just talking with his friends would make him feel better, like it had during his first days there. That had been a mistake.

Then, he had thought revisiting Darcover Town and letting its sombre atmosphere sink into him would have relaxed him. That had been an even bigger mistake.

He had tried more, both exploration and relaxation. At best, they had left him feeling as hollow as before. At worst, they had added another weight to his already sinking stomach.

His friends had noticed it too. They asked him to not push himself, told him to relax. No matter how many times Russell tried to convince them that he was fine, their concern kept shining from their eyes.

That concern cut worse than knives.

He was down to one last plan clear his head before retiring for the night: visiting the grave he and Tabasa had made two days ago, like Tabasa had suggested then. Alone, this time, nevermind any risks the forest posed.

Although, if the people in town were to be believed, he had been alone since leaving for the hospital. According to them, he had gone all by himself, and returned likewise. When asked about it, both Kantera and Dogma recalled battling through the labyrinth at the Guide-Selling Old Lady's house, but nothing about the hospital, not even their detour to the Village of Kind Strangers. Russell felt Mireille at least should have remembered, since going to the hospital had been her idea in the first place, but she was just as much at a loss as the others.

Maybe he was simply going insane.

He left the market and its lights behind, briefly closing his eyes to better see in the gloom. The cliff was right ahead, barren but for a few trees. The wooden cross near the cliff immediately drew Russell's eye.

As did the familiar figure of Tabasa, quietly gazing at the grave.

Tabasa must have heard his footsteps, as he turned his head and smiled. "Hi."

Russell nodded as he approached, not trusting himself to speak in a normal voice. There were fresh flowers on the grave, smaller than the ones they had first placed there, but just as nice. Had Tabasa picked them himself? There was no getting flowers from Darcover Town now.

Tabasa squinted at him. "Are you alright? You look pale."

"I'm fine," Russell heard himself say, his voice so hollow he doubted he would've fooled a baby.

"That's a funny kind of fine." Tabasa gave him a wan smile. "It might be too cold to sit on the ground, but maybe the Incarners won't mind if you borrow one of their boxes."

"I mean it," Russell said, lying just as smoothly as the moment before. "It's just my stomach. It'll be fine."

"...Okay, if you say so." Tabasa didn't look the least bit convinced. He took a step away from the grave and crouched down, tentatively setting his palm on the tightly packed earth covering the cliff. "Yeah, it should be fine for a while if you wanna rest. We just can't stay here for too long. Don't want to catch a flu from sitting on the cold ground, right?"

"That can happen?" Russell sat down a few feet away from Tabasa. It felt good to get off his feet. He tried breathing again, and while it didn't alleviate the strangling feeling, at least it didn't make things worse.

"Happened to me once. At least, that's what Doctor Kantera told me when I last went to him with a cold." Tabasa chuckled. "The medicine he made me was so bitter I promised myself I'd never get ill again, just so I wouldn't have to drink more of it." His eyes turned serious. "Maybe you should ask him to give you a check-up anyway. Better bitter medicine than getting really sick, you know?"

"I don't think it's the kind of thing there's medicine for." This time, Russell wasn't lying. He might have been in pain, but it wasn't something Doctor Kantera, brilliant though he was, could cure.

The truth of it was that the dream world had opened a gaping hole into his chest, and everything he had kept bottled up for as long as he could remember kept gushing out, replaced by a heavy feeling that kept pushing him down. He was sinking, not due to an illness, but something he still didn't really understand. But he did have a name for it.

Guilt.

He forced himself back to the present moment and stole a glance at Tabasa. He was looking up, his body relaxed. He seemed quite at ease with the lack of discussion. Maybe it was because animals didn't speak.

Still, it was Tabasa who eventually broke the silence. "You know," he said without looking at Russell. "It's funny how lately, it doesn't matter how dark it gets. You never see the stars."

Russell looked up. By then, the sky was pitch black, like a blanket of thick velvet, without a single cloud or speck of light showing.

"Maybe the monster's blocking the sight?" he murmured.

"What, the monster lurking about?" Tabasa grinned. "Who knows? Could well be." His grin faded. "We'll be in trouble if it's big enough to cover the sky, though. Not sure we can take it down even with the whole village behind us."

Russell began taking deeper breaths. _That's not right,_ a part of him said, _I know what the monster is, and he's not big enough to cover the sky._ But he didn't want to think about the monster, or the letters he had seen. On some level, he knew what they meant, but he didn't want to remember. They couldn't make him.

Instead, he remembered everything else.

"Tabasa," he said weakly. "I need your help."

"What's the matter?" In the darkness, Tabasa's blue eyes were almost black as he turned to look at Russell.

Russell remembered those same eyes glazed over after he had struck him, after he had turned the body's head to make sure he was dead, and just before he ran.

"It's..." He swallowed. "I need your advice. On something I regret."

"I mean, sure." Tabasa looked a bit awkward as he smiled. "If I'm honest, I'm better at practical things, but I'll give it a shot."

Russell took a deep breath, or at least tried to. Now that he had broached the subject, how was he supposed to continue? He wanted to ask about guilt, about what he was supposed to do about the feeling drowning him from within, but how?

By confessing? He felt ice on the back on his neck. He couldn't break the trust he saw in those eyes, even if that trust wasn't earned in the first place.

"I..." If only Tabasa would stop looking at him with such sympathy. He looked away, and finally knew what he could say. "I want to talk about the monster we killed."

"Oh." Tabasa fell silent for a moment as his eyes too drifted towards the grave. "Yeah, that makes sense." He sighed. "I kinda want to talk about it, too."

"You do?"

"Yeah." Tabasa knitted his brow. "You know, I used to think I wouldn't be able to kill a living creature unless there was nothing else that I could do and it was to ease its suffering." He chuckled darkly. "Though I guess that's what everyone thinks before the blood is already on their hands. I mean...you could argue what we did was self-defence. It attacked us first, after all." He sighed again. "It's a funny thing. I know what we did was necessary. Were we supposed to just let it kill us, or let it attack others? Nobody in town condemns us for it. I know all that, but the dreams where the monster's my friend keep coming." He shrugged. "Maybe a simple grave like this just isn't good enough for penance."

"Penance?" Russell savoured the unfamiliar word as he pronounced it.

"It's the same thing as repentance, I think. Something you're supposed to do to make things right. 'Repentance and restitution,' I think it was." Tabasa smiled faintly. "I don't care about religion, but maybe I should ask Dogma for a more fitting way to make amends anyway. I'm getting pretty sick of the dreams."

"Does that really work?" Russel asked faintly. He assumed there was likely no way for him to make up for what he had done, not with so many sins, but he wanted to hear more. Just listening to Tabasa talk took some of the weight of his chest, though he was sure it would return the moment they left the cliff.

Tabasa looked thoughtful. "If I had to guess...it probably depends on the situation." He paused for a moment and closed his eyes. "I feel that it's important to try to make things right, but not because someone orders you to do it. You have to really mean it. And even then," he tugged, apparently unconsciously, at his hair ornament. "I don't know. Sometimes, you might feel like you've done nothing wrong, but people think you need to repent anyway. Or the opposite, if everyone says you shouldn't feel guilty, but you still do... I don't know which is more important, your own opinion or theirs." He grimaced. "But it's probably better to be at peace with yourself. I mean, no-one's blaming me for shooting the monster, but I still don't feel good about it."

Russell was sure he flinched, but Tabasa was deep enough in thought to not notice.

"Anyway, what I was saying again... let's pretend I go and talk to Dogma. I tell him how I keep having dreams about the monster and want to know what I should do, since what we've done so far hasn't been enough..." He smiled. "Actually, since he's pretty smart, I assume he'd give me good advice. But let's say he tells me to do something stupid, like...I don't know, that I should stand in the soil for a day and pretend to be a vegetable. If I actually went and did that, do you think it would make me feel better about killing the monster? More likely it'd just make me regret listening to Dogma."

"Yeah." Despite himself, Russell's lips curled upwards.

"Think I got sidetracked there. Sorry. What I really think would happen if I went and confessed is that I'd get told that we've done everything we can already. And sometimes, that's just how it goes. It still feels bad, but maybe the guilt is just something I've gotta live with. I'm not saying you should feel guilty if you don't," he added hastily, "just that it might be okay to feel guilty, too. Sometimes, things like this take time. Taking something's life is a pretty serious thing, after all."

Tabasa fell silent, then he exhaled loudly. "Wow."

"What is it?"

"I don't think I've ever kept going for this long in one go." He grinned at Russell. "Sorry to talk your ear off."

"I asked you to," said Russell simply.

"I suppose you did." Tabasa leaned backwards. "Still no stars, huh? We should head back while we can still see ahead of ourselves." He stood up and extended his hand towards Russell.

Russell grabbed it and allowed himself to be pulled his to feet. "Thanks."

"No problem. It's what big bros do."

Russell's mouth went dry.

"Good thing we're not too far from..." Tabasa's words petered out as he glanced at Russell. "Hey, Russell?"

Russell ignored him and kept sauntering towards the edge of the cliff. He sat down and allowed his legs to wave over the edge. Far beneath, barely visible but still there, the Dozing Forest stretched endlessly towards the horizon. If he scaled the cliff — it was really more of a very steep hill when looked at in the right way — he'd be able to explore far further than ever before, maybe even to the end of the dream.

It'd be faster if he just fell, though. Maybe he could ask Tabasa to push him, just like he himself had pushed Mireille.

The memory flashed before his eyes. The nurse, with her back turned, her head bent. His own hands, stretching forward. There was no resistance when he pushed. For a second, time slowed down, as if the nurse had learned to fly. Then, nothing.

The memory from his life before. Or a memory from two hours ago? Maybe they were the same.

_She begged me to do it. I already knew what was expected of me, so I didn't hesitate. I had been a fool to expect her to help me without wanting to be repaid._

"That doesn't look safe." Tabasa was right behind him, but no push came. Of course it didn't. Russell hadn't asked him. Dream or no dream, he didn't want blood on Tabasa's hands. The way Russell saw it, there was enough blood on his hands for the entire town.

"It's okay," he said. In fact, just looking ahead into the sea of trees eased his heartache. He wished he could stay there forever, all alone, with the night descending all around him and swallowing him up. No need to feel anything. No fear of waking up and seeing the blaring lights on the ceiling, being told he should take another injection and see more of the destruction he had wreaked on his world of dreams.

But he couldn't stay. Time flowed differently in the dream, but it still flowed, and he was quickly approaching the point where his nightmares wouldn't give him a moment of peace before he returned. He would have to go back, open the door to his house, and face whatever horrors waited for him there. And whatever happened next...he would have to go through that, too.

Once more, he felt the strength in his upper body sap away as the pain he called guilt tightened its grip on his chest.

_Is this really meant to be penance? Or is it just punishment?_

"You look like a ghost." Tabasa looked around nervously, then leaned over. "Do you need help getting up? We really shouldn't stay here."

This time, Russell refused the proffered hand. They would have to return, but not right then. "There's something else I need to ask you first."

Tabasa hesitated, then sighed. "Okay, sure." With a quiet groan, he sat back down, a little farther from the cliff but still in Russell's sight. "Go ahead."

Russell racked his brain for the correct ways to phrase what was burning on his mind. "Earlier, you said you might just have to live with guilt from killing the monster." He hesitated as Tabasa nodded, frowning. "But what would you do if you killed something bigger?"

Tabasa's brow furrowed further. "I don't think there are any bigger creatures around here, but—"

"Not bigger like that," Russell interrupted him. "More intelligent. More human." He paused. "Maybe an actual human."

"Russell, I don't really get why—" Tabasa caught sight of Russell's expression, and while Russell was sure he hadn't moved a single muscle on his face, Tabasa immediately took him more seriously.

"Russell," he repeated softly. "If there's something you need to get off your chest...I'll listen. Doesn't matter what it is."

Russell looked Tabasa straight in the eye. His eyes were barely visible in the scant light, but there was no mistaking his earnestness. If he told him the truth now, he would listen.

_I murdered you. I struck you from the behind as hard as I could while you weren't looking. I did it because you were a kind stranger, and not a kind brother. Because I wanted someone like you to be there for me._

"It's nothing," his mouth said.

"Are you sure?" Tabasa refused to break eye contact, and Russell found himself incapable of averting his eyes. "It doesn't matter if it's serious or not. If it's bugging you it's better to get it out."

_You're not the only one I murdered. I killed Gardenia too. I pushed her down the stairs on our birthday. You should've seen her dad when he saw what was left of her. That's why she died. Because her dad loved her._

"I..." The weight on his chest made it difficult to speak. His head spun. It was as if the bottom of his stomach had fallen off.

_And before you ask, I murdered Cody as well. She burned to death, screaming for help, unaware her brother was dying only twenty feet away from her. All because their mother wasn't my mother, and their lives were free from hatred._

"I'm sure," his mouth continued without waiting for his input. "I'm tired, that's all."

"Well, if you're sure." Tabasa frowned, but let the matter mercifully drop. "Either way, I think you should go see Doctor Kantera before you go to bed."

"Okay." _He begged me to kill him, too. What else was I supposed to do? I understood our relationship had been a transaction: he helped me, not because he liked me, but because he couldn't bring himself to commit suicide. It was repayment, nothing more._

As he considered the mild-mannered doctor and his gentle smile, and just how willing he had been to be stabbed, an awful thought struck Russell.

_He killed only one man, and still couldn't live with the guilt. Now they want me to carry the burden of six deaths?_

"Hey, Russell? Snap out of it!" Tabasa's hand was on his shoulder, feeling as solid and real as concrete, giving Russell something stable to focus on as the world swam in front of his eyes. "Don't tell me you've got anemia too."

_All my fault...all my fault..._

Tabasa's hand was still there, serving as an anchor. "It's okay," he sounded remarkably calm, with only the smallest hint of concealed fear. "You're gonna be okay. Just breathe."

Russell did. The air was so thick he had to swallow it rather than breathe, but slowly, the ache settled down to the point where he could see around himself again.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Tabasa was right next to him now, looking deeply concerned and a bit scared.

Russell averted his eyes. "No." Any help Tabasa might have been able to give would be another stab at Russell's heart, anyway.

"Okay. Let's just rest for a while then."

Tabasa's hand left his shoulder, and for a moment, there was nothing in Russell's world but the wind rustling the treetops, and the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears.

"I told you I'm not an expert, and I meant it," Tabasa's voice felt like it came from somewhere far away beneath the ground. "But if something's making you feel this bad and it's not a physical thing, maybe you should talk to Dogma about it?"

_What should I tell him? That I lit the funeral pyre that killed him and his little sister, and now feel guilty about it? Would he ever understand? Does he even know what guilt feels like, or has he just read about it?_

But Tabasa did know guilt. The lonely grave stood right behind them as proof.

"I want to talk to you about it," Russell mumbled. "But I don't think I can tell anyone yet."

Tabasa nodded. For an instant, he looked disappointed, but the expression was quickly replaced with a faint smile. "That's okay. Just don't over-do it."

Silence reigned for a while, peaceful rather than oppressive. It offered Russell no comfort whatsoever.

"Sometimes," he began again, almost in a whisper. He couldn't confess, he just couldn't, but he had to do something about the weight on him. "I just feel like I'm sinking and can't pull myself back up. And I'm not sure there's anything I can do to stop it."

At once, Tabasa's smile went from calm to pitying. "I'm sorry to hear that. Dunno how to help you with that, but if I could, I would."

"Yeah." Russell knew. That knowledge was yet another stab at his chest.

When he made no effort to move, even after Tabasa cast several worried glances at the black sky, the animal-keeper visibly hesitated.

"You know," he spoke at length, "I know it's not the same,  but if you don't mind hearing me talk some more, I could tell you about the time I almost literally drowned."

Russell blinked. "What?"

"Yeah. Only if you want me to, of course."

"I do." He was wrong to look for distractions so late into the experiment, he supposed, but a drowning person will gladly grasp at any straw. "Please tell me."

"Alright. One last story, and then we'll head back. Okay?" When Russell nodded, Tabasa adjusted the way he sat to be more comfortable, smiling reassuringly at Russell as the latter swung his feet back on top of the cliff to face him.

"Right, so...it was long before you moved in. I found a compass here in the forest, called the Marsh Compass. It led to a swamp, and not an interesting one. It was one large field of peat with a muddy lake and a tiny island in the middle of it. Basically just a really wet forest. Cody went there for herbs sometimes, but other one that, I don't think anyone but me cared to go there much."

Russell tilted his head. "Why did you go there?"

"To relax, I suppose. It was a calm place. Lots of birds lived there. Anyway, one day, one of the sheep went missing. I thought it had sneaked off to the vegetable patch, but turned out, it wasn't anywhere in town, or in the forest, or anywhere else either. We all looked for it together, but couldn't find a hair. That is, until I remembered one place we hadn't checked."

"And it was the swamp," said Russell softly.

"Yeah, exactly. I'm still not completely sure how it got there. It might've swallowed the compass, since it went missing at the same time, but— it doesn't matter." Tabasa shook his head. "Anyway, I went there alone. I didn't want to bother anyone else with it after they had already done so much. And sure enough, there the sheep was, stuck on the tiny island, bleating like there was no tomorrow." Tabasa smirked, but there was little humour to it. "It must have found the only safe path to the island through dumb luck, because as careful as I tried to be, as sure as I made to step only on the sturdiest sheets of peat, I slipped and got stuck."

Russell stared at Tabasa, like hypnotised. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew none of what Tabasa told him had actually happened. Somehow, that mattered very little.

"After I while, it was clear I wasn't getting out of it by struggling. The more I tried to get myself out of it, the worse it got. Soon both my feet were stuck, and before I knew it, my boots filled with water. My coat got drenched and weighed like bricks, so I took it off and threw it aside."

"What then?"

"Well, since moving only made me sink faster, I decided I wouldn't move at all. The longer I managed to keep my head above water, the longer I stood a chance to figure my way out of it. And so I waited. The sun began to set, and the water got up to my chest." Tabasa closed his eyes. "The cold was really worse than anything else. I really regretted getting rid of my coat then, but I had thrown it too far away to grab it. And the sheep was still there, eating all the plants on the island." He re-opened his eyes. "While I waited, I had time to think. I thought about how in a way, it was fair that I was stuck and not the sheep. It wasn't the sheep's fault. It didn't know any better than to get lost, and I should've kept a better eye on it. I'm not saying I wanted to die," he added, glancing at Russell. "Only that, if I was going to die, I felt a little better knowing the sheep might survive, at least."

He felt silent and took a deep breath. After he didn't continue for a good while, Russell asked: "How did you get out of it?"

Tabasa's smile returned, though only barely. "Just before night fell, Cody thought to come check the swamp for the lost sheep, and when she found me, she went to get everyone else. They mounted a big rescue operation right there and then. I was a bit embarrassed to cause such a hassle," he interjected, tugging at his ornament, "but you could say I deserved to be embarrassed for getting stuck like that. Anyway, it took them a while to figure out how it was actually done, but soon enough I was out of the swamp, in fresh clothes, with a blanket around me, and given tea and medicine and all the fried vegetables I could eat. The sheep was returned to its flock, I stopped going to the swamp, and life went on as usual."

Russell said nothing.

"Yeah," said Tabasa, suddenly sheepish. "Can't imagine that being of much use to you."

"I'm glad you told me," said Russell quietly. The air had grown heavier still. "I just wish I knew how to get out of my swamp, too."

Tabasa grunted as he got back up. "Well...I don't know what kind of a swamp you're drowning in, but..." His smile returned at full force. "You don't have to fight it alone. We'll all be there, fighting with you."

Russell met Tabasa's eyes and his earnest, straightforward gaze. He smiled back.

Tabasa held out his hand once more, and this time, Russell gladly accepted.

And for a brief moment, he forgot he was holding hands with a corpse.


End file.
